The last of the Vindicators had fled, leaving behind the heavy silence of victory and the smell of ozone and blood.
Ragnar Vhagar, Demon King and now Level 2, leaned back on his brutally uncomfortable obsidian throne.
The adrenaline from the fight was fading, leaving behind the dull, familiar ache of a middle manager who just survived a hostile quarterly review.
His kobolds were dragging the corpse of the fallen mage away, their movements grimly efficient.
Thirty of their own had been lost, a fact that sat like a cold stone in Ragnar's gut. The cost of leveling up was steep.
He looked at his phone, the glowing screen a beacon of sanity in his new, violent life.
[You are now Level 2!]
[Your Creation Point (CP) Cap has increased to 200!]
[Your Creation Point (CP) Recovery Rate has increased!]
[You have gained 5 Bonus Points (BP)!]
Five whole points. It felt like a fortune and nothing at all.
He tapped the [Allocate BP] button and stared at the screen, his mind, once used for optimizing video game skill trees, now working on the puzzle of his own survival.
"Okay, think, Ragnar, think," he muttered. Gary the kobold, who was attempting to "help" by licking a bloodstain off the floor, looked up at him with a dumb, loyal expression.
"The Vindicators were strong," Ragnar continued, talking to himself.
"My E-Rank punch can still wreck a wall, but against a real fighter? I'd be a red smear on the floor before I could even wind up.
So, boosting my own Body stat right now is like putting a spoiler on a car with no engine."
He needed leverage. He needed force multipliers. He needed an army that could do the dying for him.
His eyes fell on the Creation stat, still sitting at a lowly D-Rank.
The Vindicator fight proved one thing above all else: quality mattered.
His cheap goblin horde had been vaporized. His tougher, club-wielding kobolds had held the line and won the battle.
"More minions is good," he reasoned, "but better minions is better."
Raising Creation seemed like the only logical choice. He had 5 BP. The cost from D to C was exactly 5 BP. It was perfect.
A sign from the cosmic entity that was probably laughing at his predicament.
He carefully tapped the '+' next to Creation, his thumb moving with the precision of a bomb disposal expert.
[Allocate 5 BP to raise Creation to C-Rank? Y/N]
He slammed his thumb on the 'Y'.
BOOM!
A new wave of information, a tidal wave of pure knowledge, crashed into his brain. It didn't hurt like the Alchemy rank-up, but it was just as overwhelming.
He saw blueprints for new creatures, diagrams of their anatomy, and complex lists of their strengths and weaknesses.
When the world stopped spinning, he looked at his phone.
[Creation has been raised to C-Rank!]
[New Subordinates Unlocked: Orc (Cost: 25 CP), Dark Elf (Cost: 50 CP)]
Orcs. He knew what those were. Big, green, and mean. Probably not much brighter than his goblins, but with ten times the muscle.
An Orc cost five times as much as a goblin, but it probably hit a hundred times harder. A solid choice for a new front-line unit.
But then his eyes fell on the other option. Dark Elf. Fifty Creation Points.
The single most expensive thing he could make. The description was simple: A proud and intelligent race, skilled in archery and magic, hailing from the deep forests of the shadow world.
The word echoed in Ragnar's lonely, monster-filled mind. He was surrounded by sniffing, grunting, and shrieking morons.
His most stimulating conversations were with his own reflection or the freezer-burned block of meat next to his True Core.
He had read on the Demon King forums....in a post between a guy complaining his slimes ate his homework and another asking for advice on how to get his gargoyles to stop pooping on his throne
that Dark Elves could speak human languages.
A conversation partner. A subordinate he could actually talk to. Someone to plan strategy with, to bounce ideas off of, to complain to about the terrible ergonomics of his throne.
The thought was so intoxicating that he didn't even care about the cost.
"This is it," he whispered with the excitement of a kid on Christmas morning. "This is the investment that changes everything.
An advisor. A second-in-command."
He tapped the 'Create Monster' button and selected the Dark Elf. 50 of his hard-earned 200 CP vanished in an instant.
A pillar of swirling black and purple energy erupted in the middle of the Throne Room. The air grew cold.
From the energy, a figure stepped forth.
She was tall, slender, and graceful. Her skin was the color of twilight, a soft, dusky gray. Her hair was long and silver, cascading down her back like a moonlit waterfall.
Her ears were long and pointed, and her sharp, intelligent eyes were the color of amethysts.
She wore simple, dark leather clothes that the system provided, and carried a beautifully crafted longbow on her back.
She was, without a doubt, the most elegant and beautiful creature Ragnar had ever seen.
She took one look at him, her expression neutral, and then gracefully knelt on one knee.
Ragnar's heart was pounding. He stood up from his throne, trying to look as kingly as possible, which was difficult when his pants had a small hole in the knee.
"Welcome," he said, his voice booming with a confidence he absolutely did not feel. "I am your master, Ragnar Vhagar. It is an honor to have you.
What is your name?"
The Dark Elf looked up at him, her amethyst eyes meeting his. She opened her mouth, and a voice like wind chimes spoke a single word.
"Val'sharah."
It sounded beautiful. It also sounded like complete and utter gibberish.
Ragnar blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"
She spoke again, this time a full sentence.
"Anu belore dela'na, O'lór. Man'ari thoribas."
Her tone was respectful, her words flowing just like music.
They meant absolutely nothing to him.
A cold, horrible realization began to dawn on Ragnar. "Do you… do you speak English? Japanese? Any human language at all?"
The Dark Elf tilted her head, her expression one of polite confusion. "Shorel'aran?" she asked, as if offering him a cup of tea.
Ragnar stared at her. His 50-point investment. His intelligent advisor. His second-in-command.
His one hope for a real conversation. And she was speaking a language from a fantasy novel he'd never read.
He collapsed back onto his throne, his head in his hands. "The internet lied to me," he groaned.
"Of course, it did. Why would a forum run by idiots who can't keep their monsters from eating their furniture have accurate information?"
The Dark Elf, now named Val'sharah in his head, remained kneeling, her expression unchanging, patiently waiting for her next incomprehensible command.
Gary the kobold trotted over and sniffed her boot with great interest.
Ragnar sighed, the sound echoing in the vast, silent hall. He now had an army of morons, and one beautiful, intelligent, and completely useless linguist.
World domination was going to be even harder than he thought.